The Word

She asked me where she should put her brand new still packaged Bible, and I answered. I looked at her face and I knew then, she wasn't really asking where to put it, she was asking for someone to give her permission to be excited about it. She was asking for someone to tell her it was a big deal. So I did. As I held the Bible for her she tore off the plastic with great enthusiasm. As I asked her to find our memory verses I realized that she hasn't ever read a Bible before. This is quite possibly her family's first Bible. She listened as I showed her the Table of Contents and talked about the Old and New Testament. She found Romans and I explained how to find the chapter and verse. Then she found it and started reading, "For all have sinned..." She exclaimed and looked at me so excited that she already knew that verse.

You know, I pray to hunger for God's word, but she puts me to shame. Every day since then she has looked for opportunities to read her Bible. During math she asked me "When can we read the Bible again?" So, we ended math a little early and everyone got out their Bibles (a required textbook for our 4th-6th graders). We practiced finding verses and all of my kids loved it and asked to keep reading. On the ride home she pulled her silver Bible out of her backpack and asked what verses to look up. As we sat surrounded by new Thai books (thanks to a generous church in Australia) she read to me a book with Jesus' parables. As we finished the story there was a Bible reference. She looked at me and said, "Oh! Can I go get my Bible?" She ran upstairs and quickly returned and found the book of Matthew just like I taught her.

Visiting with her mom at the end of the day I told her that her daughter has been so excited about her Bible and had read it virtually non-stop. She smiled and said, "I know, she came home yesterday bursting about her new Bible and read it to me last night."

When she was opening her Bible for the first time some of my other students came in to see what was going on. They saw some of our Bible story books in Thai and English and asked if they could read them. After they read for awhile and I read with my little girl we decided to play catch with a plastic ball. More of our students ventured in and we sat in a circle to play a new game. One of my boys said, "How about we play that we pass the ball around the circle and when Miss Emily says stop, whoever is holding the ball has to say one of our Bible verses." I said, "Good idea," Miss Brittany turned on music and the game began. As the ball stopped the kids would tell the other kid what verse to say and what language to say it in. Miss Brittany stopped the ball on me and the kids said that I should say Romans 6:23 in Thai. I got nervous and asked them all to say it with me. And the sweet children they are, they helped and we all recited it together. They really surprised me with how well they did reciting the verses on their own in both languages.

And I'm so thankful because God's word does not return void. "So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it." Isaiah 55:11 I pray that the Lord continues to work in their hearts and that they always love His word.

Grateful

As I prepared to write this blog post I read a blog by a woman named Ann Voskamp. She had two quotes in her post "When You're Finding It Hard to Be Patient" that jumped out at me.

As I read her words I thought of my fourteen beautiful children who last Thursday drove me up a wall and this Wednesday brought joy to my heart. And I was convicted, "Love is only patient if it's first grateful for what is." In order to be loving and patient toward my kids I must also grateful for each imperfect moment we have. Though I don't always show it I am without a doubt, grateful for the privilege to hear their little voices calling me teacher. I'm so grateful for the abundance of little boys with mood swings because I know the lives they've led. I'm grateful for the little girls who work so hard because I know who they get that work ethic from. I'm grateful for the kids who fight through so much that at school they're doing good to keep a smile on their faces. I can't imagine what it would be like if anyone of them were missing.

Ann Voskamp also said, "Patient people dare to gratefully accept people where they are. Grateful for who they are now, appreciative of works of art not yet finished, but still deeply loved." As I think about each of my little ones that applies perfectly to each of their lives: "works of art not yet finished, but still deeply loved." So in the studio where we work on building our characters, theirs and mine, I must remember to be grateful that I get a chance to be a part of their development. I pray that who we are tomorrow is more like Christ than the people we are today.

Rain and Tears

I'll be honest. This week...wasn't great. Tears came unbidden and irritation got the best of me. I felt overwhelmed and under skilled.

Our days are much like every one's... ordinary, unpredictable, and much more than we can handle. We wrestle with curriculum that despite the best efforts of many just doesn't match. We stumble around with words that just don't make sense. We spend hours planning, preparing and the work just isn't finished. We have hundreds of last minute changes and too much work with not enough hands.

Life is made of the days when I'm just so irritated that our kitchen roof leaks just about everyday, that one thing after another breaks on our car (I'm almost convinced that everytime we take the car to the shop they intentionally break something else so that we have to go back), that the cockroaches enjoy living under our roof. I'm annoyed that I live in a hot humid climate, that it may sound like its raining but it is actually the sound of many termite wings beating against our windows, that our Internet works in short intervals (when it's not too hot) and mocks me the rest of the time. That my students would decide to be crazy the day we have visitors in our classroom. That half the computers in the lab refuse to work as I'm trying to calmly teach a computer class to prove that really things aren't normally this crazy. That I ending up having to have one of the aforementioned visitors write the students scores on the whiteboard as they finished their computer activity every thirty seconds, while another volunteer reviewed flashcards with the half of the class that didn't end up with a computer. Meanwhile I spent most of the class in the hallway with two little rebellious and broken hearts and four eyes with big tears. You get the picture.

Sometimes the challenges of teaching my students, the termites, the floods, and the communication barriers drown out the voice of truth. They make it seem as if absolutely everything is terrible and that it will never get better.

BUT. But, the truth is that...

He whispers that He is my life. My salvation. My joy. My love. My strength.

And just as He graciously gave me salvation He has also granted to me suffering.

I know that heat, gross bugs, and constant challenges in our work do not compare to the suffering of many Christians and especially do not compare to the sufferings of Christ. Yet, for us, right now this is what has been granted to us as a privilege. A privilege for the glory of Christ and for our good.

"To you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake."

The suffering, it's worth it. Why? Because it has been granted to me to believe in Him. Because He has laid hold of me, because He has poured out His blood to give me grace. Because suffering is often His means of spreading His message to the people who are far off. Because He suffered while walking on this earth, and He is our example. Because He loves me enough to die a horrible death to allow me to be His own. His own. As His own I know that what He allows in my life is for a good purpose and that one day He will wipe away all my tears.

Swim Club!

Swim club = the highlight of our kid's week. The kids love to don their borrowed swimsuits and splash around in the water trying to follow the directions of their English speaking teachers. They get to escape some of the oppressive heat and just be kids. Our bosses' wife has organized this after school swim club with the help of other volunteers for all of our students. They are doing a great job!



A picture is worth a thousand words so here you go...

Under the Cross

Lately, many people have asked, "So, I noticed there are Buddhist idols at your school, why is that?" While my mouth gives the black and white answer in my mind I think about what those idols represent. They are symbols of a lie of the devil that we daily fight against. How daily we live and work under the loving eyes of our all-seeing Father as well as in front of the unseeing work of man's hands.

On the surface, we are just a school. Underneath there is so much more.

I have Buddhist children who during FUN reading when they get to pick anything they want choose my English Children's Bible. When they've looked in that Bible they get the Thai Children's Bible and read about the stories. My boy from the mountains who has trouble speaking Thai sits next to this boy and tells him the Bible stories that he knows. When the daughter of an woman suffering from cancer who is also an ex-prostitute comes to join my class I'm thankful I get to speak into her life. I have a little girl who was just taken from her father and his girlfriend (who is a man who has decided to become a woman) because of abuse and other illegal activity. I have a boy whose parents abandoned him, and one whose parents are in jail.

Everyday our team speaks into their lives. In all the languages we speak we tell them they can overcome. With all our efforts we show them they are worth it. With every ounce of His energy we pour His love on them.

For many of them we are their only hope. Their only hope of coming to know Christ Jesus as Savior. Their only hope of receiving a good education and not being left behind. Their only hope of a better future and a life different from their parent's.

Everyday we fight to be light in the darkness. We pray that the entrenched tradition of Buddhism and the unseeing, unhearing, unknowing statues which represent it will one day be cast down. That its influence will no longer blind our children or their families to the truth of Christ.

So at times when it seems like we live under the darkness of the idols and the lies of the devil which pervade this country, we have to remember that really we live under the cross, the victorious and gracious cross of Christ. That Christ on the cross ransomed and redeemed all who will come to Him. That He is the light in this darkness, the hope for these precious ones, and the Savior of every nation.

Numbers 13 and 14

Grade 4 was the class we almost didn't open. We started out with three students, lost one, and gained three more. Now with five students it is the third largest class. They bring my grand total up to fourteen which is still six short of the twenty students that certain friends were praying for me. :)

Our general school policy is that we are not accepting applications for this current school year. Mostly because the more students miss the farther they are behind and the harder it is to catch up. However, when they come and we are basically their only hope we make an exception. An exception we hope will change their lives for the better.

Meet two of our exceptions.

This sweet little girl has recently been removed from her "home." She has so many struggles and challenges to overcome. This kind of smile is fairly rare but is beautiful when it surfaces.

This little girl came to us two days ago with yet another heartbreaking story. We'll be taking her home as well as our other special little charge.

Please pray for these two little girls that they would quickly adjust to our school and that they would begin to thrive. Pray for their families and the healing that is needed in both situations. Pray that they would know the Savior's love for them and that would respond to His call.

Reasons to Smile

So I have to admit I think it's funny when he says plower instead of flower and fourn instead of four. Every time he says six it comes out like the Thai word for ten (sip) and the poor girl next to him gets confused.

It makes me smile when I go over to check on him and the other fourth grade boy because they are talking over a book in fun reading and I hear him explaining to his friend the Bible stories he recognizes from their pictures in the English Bible. They ask me if the statue in the picture is Christian or Buddhist and they don't quite get that it is neither.

I smile when he brings me a book in the library at break and asks me to read to him. When he excitedly calls a friend over and they hurry to the mats to sit down to hear the story. When it's finished they ask for another and when time is up they say, "Thank you, teacher" in English.

I smile when we're doing addition fact flashcards and he yells out "Seventyhaa." A strange mix between Thai and English which he thinks is so funny. Pretty soon we were all laughing, including my Thai co-teacher as we were going downstairs for the end of the day. He kept repeating it to himself and then giggling in the funniest way.

I smile when the ping pong ball taped on our back bulletin board in a solar system model randomly drops to the floor and makes that distinctive noise when no one is in the classroom and I am walking down the stairs.

I smile when one of my students from last year comes into the room politely, wais, looks confused and says, "I'm sorry teacher...um...I forgot what I'm supposed to ask." Before hurrying out to find Miss Amy again and ask what he is supposed to be getting.

I smile when I see my three third grade girls playing and giggling all together since one is a tomboy and the other has a hard time fitting in.

I smile when one of my dear little boys asks me "How are you?"before I ask him and when I ask him how he is he answers, "I'm fine thank you and you?" I wonder how long we could go in this cycle.

I smile when I am helping one of my students complete a behavior reflection form to help him think through why he got in trouble and how to avoid it in the future. We went through the first part of the Thai form fine with the name, date, grade and then I read him the first question because he can't read in Thai. He answered me and then went to write the answer and then asked me the Thai equvilent of "Now, does that start with an s?" (Which in Thai there are numerous symbols for the /s/ sound.) I looked at him and told him, "I have no idea." And then we both laughed because neither of us could spell.

I smile when they help each other (the one who really struggles helping the one who struggles even more) and encourage each other.

I'm thankful for these many reasons to smile and my thirteen blessings who cause them and the God who carries us all.